Blue Claws: The Tasty Embodiment of Crabby

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A blue claw crab in Chinatown.CreditYana Paskova for The New York Times

By Dave Taft

Sept. 4, 2015

At first glance, an adult blue claw crab is a creature with claws and spines at every joint — with a few extras thrown in for good measure. It does not seem to have many good moods and is inclined to fits of anger, which it expresses like a cartoon Tasmanian devil: blood-crazed and claw-waving.

To be fair, had I been wrenched from a dark incoming tide in a 10-foot-long dip net and unceremoniously plunged into the bottom of a white five-gallon bucket, I might be somewhat miffed, too.

Blue claw crabs (Callinectes sapidus) are aggressive, but they are also delicious — as valuable for family dinners as they have been commercially for centuries as a harvested species. Though they are famously associated with the Chesapeake Bay, the highly entertaining vocabulary used to describe their life history is also used for those living in the Hudson’s estuary. The protein in your soft-shell-crab sandwich is more than just seafood.

An adult male crab is known as a Jimmy, and in New York State he must be 4.5 inches long — point to point across the shell — to be harvested. Female crabs are known as Sallies until they’re sexually mature, when they transform into sooks during their final molt. Interestingly, the female preparing for this last (or “pubertal”) molt attract males by releasing powerful pheromones into the water, enticing her grumpy suitors to dance and vie for attention. Once won, she submits to his spreading his legs around her as an ill-tempered, living cage until she sheds her heavy armor and offers herself up to him. It is the only time in her life she will mate, storing her lover’s sperm in her body in specialized sacs to fertilize millions of maturing eggs for months.

A female with ripening eggs is unmistakable. She looks as if she were carrying a sponge under her belly and is known, naturally, as a sponge crab.

Both sexes of blue claws have shells with long lateral spines and may measure more than nine inches across. They are named for the brilliant, true blue of their front claws. Only the males have entirely blue claws — females’ are tipped with red or orange. Though both sexes have a modified abdomen tucked under their bodies, a Jimmy’s “apron” is long and thin. In the Chesapeake Bay, nearer to our capital, fishers are encouraged to think Washington Monument. Sallies, on the other hand, have a broader, triangular apron, which develops into a surprisingly good likeness of the Capitol Dome when she molts into a sook.

You may find blue claws foraging on the bottom of Atlantic shorelines when you are swimming. They’re especially beautiful, even graceful, in clear water over a sandy bottom. But don’t miss the fun of a summer night under the bright lights of a wooden pier in places like Sheepshead Bay or Canarsie Pier, where fishers wait for dinner, wielding long-poled dip nets, plying the tides for Jimmies, Sallies and sooks.